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Journalism of Courage
The shortlist for the Booker Prize has been announced. A veteran (Ian McEwan, with On Chesil Beach) is in contention along with an Indian (Indra Sinha, with Animal’s People) and a Pakistani (Mohsin Hamid, with The Reluctant Fundamentalist). Others in the fray are a little-known New Zealander (Lloyd Jones, with Mister Pip), a London-based new hand at the ghost story (Nicola Barker, with Darkmans), and an Irishwoman (Anne Enright, with The Gathering). There are enough careful readers around to attest to the brilliance of these six writers, but can we now wrap up our reading lists for 2007’s fiction by heeding the vitality of the shortlist?
Certainly not. The Booker casts its net extraordinarily wide each year, allowing eligibility to all novels in English by writers belonging to the Commonwealth and Ireland. But it would be unimaginable for even a jury member to argue that he is working to present these countries’ single best novel at the October 16
final announcement. So should one ignore these shortlists? Only at your own personal loss. Literary juries are becoming less arbiters of excellence and more reading guides to the abundance of good writing emanating from ever-newer places and communities. The Booker, for instance, appears to have heeded this change. Its annual long and shortlists pay more importance to new voices. It has appended new categories — for instance, international writers of long standing and lesser known ones with unpublished manuscripts. Other compilers of lists too have to keep changing criteria for eligibility. The literary journal Granta recently revised the maximum age (from 40 to 35) to make it to its decennial lists of best young writers. By contrast the top American prizes for fiction, the National Book Award and the Pulitzer, remain largely uninfluenced by considerations of novelty and representation.
So, take awards as opportunities to expand the choices on the bookshelf. But do remain vigilant to
political or statist choices. The Nobel, for instance, is the highest literary honour. But on occasion — as with Chinese exile Gao Xingjian in 2000 — the point is completely political.
